


Connection

by softmoonlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Kanan (Comics), Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Baby Ezra Bridger, Crisis of Faith, Gen, Kid Fic, Kinda, Lothal, Pre-Star Wars: Rebels, Trauma, idk I'm on a kid fic kick lately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25457152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softmoonlight/pseuds/softmoonlight
Summary: A baby is crying.Why are his problems always things that shouldn’t evenbehis problems?Fifteen-year-old Kanan finds baby Ezra and deals with it perfectly fine, thank you very much.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus
Comments: 8
Kudos: 120





	Connection

**Author's Note:**

> Took one of the Jedi June prompts and ran with it a bit late. Honestly I just wanted a stressed teenager who _did not sign up for this_ scrambling to deal with a baby. I wasn't going to publish it because I couldn't decide between two endings but whatever, here it is in its kind of incomplete glory.
> 
> Tagged with the Kanan comics fandom because this is pretty heavily reliant on some philosophy from there as well as the basis for Kanan's angsty teen characterization. If that's not enough to warrant the tag, I can remove it.
> 
> tw: potentially triggering if you have body dysmorphia bc of identifying based on biological sex? I’m not sure but I’m putting it here just in case.

A baby is crying.

And it's inside the house he just ducked into to get away from the stormtroopers.

Kanan snarls in a panicked fury, squinting around in the darkness for the exact location of the cries. The sound is oddly tinny and distant, probably in another room, but definitely coming from inside the house. Kriff.

Why are his problems always things that shouldn’t even _be_ his problems? First he was a Jedi in a sham war created by the Sith, then he was a fugitive who committed no crime except existing, and now, he's hidden in a house with a screaming baby.

Whatever. He has to shut the damn thing up before the troopers pass by here. But where _i_ _s_ it?

Kanan unfurls himself from the far wall and, quietly as possible even as he curses the youngling for being so loud, begins to search the place.

The house is small, so surely the baby won't be hard to find. What he's going to do once he finds it...well. He'll figure it out, like he always does. 

The entire time he turns over the other rooms—a bedroom with an empty crib and a 'fresher—he runs over everything that just went wrong, and is _still_ going wrong.

Being this far Outer Rim, Lothal isn't heavily patrolled—yet—but he just _happened_ to pick the one day that what seemed to be an entire Star Destroyer's worth of stormtroopers arrived to guard some maybe-important moff scouting the place for a new building site. He'd just _happened_ to get caught approaching his usual contact on Lothal; when faced with two troopers guarding the door in their place, he'd immediately been guilty by association, because the kriffing Empire’s policy is "shoot first, don't even bother asking questions."

Granted, since he's involved in a smuggling operation they were technically right this time, but the only reason Kanan _has_ to be a smuggler in the first place is because of the Empire, so kriff them anyway.

Only his reflexes saved him from getting riddled with blasterfire, and he took off running through the streets, instinctively stretching out his awareness in the Force to find an empty house to break into. Leading him here. To a very much _not_ empty house, but he hadn't noticed until the damn _screaming_ started _._

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never trust the Force for anything, it'll just bite you in the ass. It's barely been a year since everything went to shit, but he should know better by now.

Because nothing is ever simple, the baby is in neither of the other rooms. Because of course it isn't. He even checks under the bed and in the shower. When he goes back to the main room, it's not there either. The entire house is strangely barren of most personal articles, almost as though no one lives here. Which makes no sense because he can _hear_ the screaming.

Kanan pinches the bridge of his nose. Maybe it's next door and it actually isn't his problem? No, that would be too lucky for him. Somehow the youngling is in this house.

Damn everything. He has to use the Force again, doesn't he?

Shakily, even as his heart's pounding away in his chest, Kanan shuts his eyes and reminds himself of his master's teachings—her last teachings, as it would turn out, thanks to Grey and Styles and the Emperor.

_Remember Caleb, the universe is far from static, and as it changes, a Jedi's role in it must evolve._

He's not a Jedi, and never will be, but it still applies. Accept the change. Adjust to the circumstances. Survive.

He's been using the advice to justify _not_ using the Force, but now he's doing the opposite—trying to convince himself it's worth the risk.

After a year of repressing that part of himself so thoroughly that he even managed to repress some of his own memories, he struggles to immerse himself in the otherworldly calm that is the Force. Frayed and neglected as it is, his connection to it is mostly out of reach. He only accessed it a few minutes ago out of pure instinct, there for the moment he needed to save himself then gone again. Actively calling upon it is another thing entirely, especially when he turned his back on it and no longer believes in it, or trusts it.

His mind races, and he can't quiet it. The baby's cries are too loud, his anxiety about the Force failing him overwhelming, the worries about whether he's even going to make it offplanet suffocating.

_Focus._

Kanan doesn't know whether it's Master Billaba's voice, Master Yoda's, Master Windu's, or even Grey's, from the time he first taught him how to shoot a blaster. Maybe all of them. Regardless of whom, and regardless of the pain dredged up by their memories, the command centers him. It's simply another lesson, not life or death.

He shudders once more, but takes a deep, heaving breath, and when he exhales, focuses only on his breathing, nothing else.

When he opens his eyes again, his skin tingles with the familiar buzz of connection to the world beyond his own body. A mutually beneficial connection, giving him strength and strengthening everything around him. Symbiosis, Master Yoda always said, helping the younglings to remember the word by making them say it backwards, which always resulted in a lot of giggling. Kanan's always associated the Force and the symbiotic connection with that warm, giggly feeling, but he knows what he'll find now. It's part of why he cut himself off from it in the first place.

The Force feels different than it used to be. Colder. Sharper. Darker. Emptier. Harder to navigate. With everyone gone, there's barely any light left to hold on to anymore.

He forces his senses outward anyway, into the expanse of dark, searching for a nearby presence.

 _There_.

A small light flickers at the edge of his awareness. It's a soft, muted glow, with spikes of brightening synced with the child's louder cries, which have faded a little in Kanan's hearing even if they haven't actually decreased in volume. He drifts to it like a moth to a flame, his mind stretching out to reach it as his feet guide him across the room and to...the couch?

It takes him a moment, but he realizes the feeling is actually coming from the table. Bemused, he kicks at it, hard.

To his surprise, it isn't bolted down. Instead it slides away to reveal a ladder leading down into a hidden room, dimly lit by some light source. Without the table to muffle them, the screams are louder again even with the Force.

Knowing he's wasted too much time already, Kanan jumps down into the room, closing the hatch behind him with a careless mental tug as a last-ditch precaution.

The youngling is genuinely endangering him now, since a quick check of the presences in the surrounding streets tells him the stormtroopers are only a block away—identified through the single-minded determination from the ones who are clones. That's how Grey and Styles felt the entire time they were chasing him, as though they had no thoughts except hunting him down.

There's another crib in the corner. Kanan sprints toward it, lunging for the small form nestled in the middle of the blankets and gathering it into his arms as fast as he possibly can.

Immediately, he scrambles to hold onto the youngling. The small body feels sort of...squishy, and it's squirming in his arms, limbs flailing wildly to the point where Kanan has to tighten his grip to keep a hold on it, which then makes him feel like he's hurting it.

He's so close that he thinks the crying is going to shatter his eardrums, and he needs to cover his ears, except to cover his ears he'd have to drop the baby.

He's screwed.

What the kriff are you supposed to do with babies? Kanan hasn't dealt with a baby since he was in the crèche himself, and even then the younglings were all at least three and knew how to walk and talk! Why is this one so loud? Don't they quiet down when you hold them? Why won't it stay still, it's a baby, where is it even trying to go? They're going to hear it and then the Empire will find them and Kanan will be killed and he's not a great person anymore but he doesn't want to _die_ why did he go into this kriffing house why does the Force hate him so much—

"Please be quiet," he begs the baby desperately, shushing it as he keeps struggling to get a good grip on it. His voice does _not_ waver and he is _not_ about to start crying too. "Please, please, please, I promise I'll help you when we're safe, but you gotta be quiet first, okay?"

But he is talking to an infant, so of course it keeps crying. Kanan chokes out a sob.

An inane idea strikes him, and not knowing what else to do, Kanan maneuvers the baby into the crook of one arm in a very shaky hold. With his now free hand, he unceremoniously sticks his index finger in the youngling's mouth— _gross gross gross gross_ —to shut it up.

For a moment there is blissful silence as the baby stills, sucking on his finger like it's one of those pacifier-thingies, and Kanan's shoulders relax. It feels weird, but at least it's quiet.

Then the youngling's face twists, and sharp, tiny teeth bite into his skin. Though it didn't really hurt, Kanan yelps in surprise and yanks his finger away reflexively. The baby spits and wriggles in Kanan's grip again, and starts crying a second later.

No, no, no, no, no...

The Force nudges at his mind once more. Angry as he is that following it led him to this situation, Kanan listens, opening himself up to the sensations around him again. If it's going to save his life, that's all that matters. 

Immediately, his awareness draws toward the small flickering light of the baby's Force presence. 

Realizing he neglected the obvious solution, Kanan reaches out for the child's mind with his own, projecting as much soothing, reassuring emotion as he can.

The small light latches on to him, returning a vague jumble of images and happy warmth, and the baby finally relaxes in his arms.

Oh. Oh no.

Now he understands why the Force pushed him here, and he wants _no_ part of it. He may have fixed one problem, but only to replace it with something far more complicated.

This baby is Force-sensitive.

If he wasn't so focused on finding it and stopping the crying, Kanan would have noticed earlier. No wonder his instincts sent him here. The place was technically empty of adults that could kick him out, but there was still a Force-sensitive baby alone and afraid inside, and Force-sensitives gravitate to each other naturally. The only reason Kanan hasn't encountered more is because there's so few left.

Kanan would have found the child eventually if it survived and he kept coming back here. He wishes it was later, some time when he's old enough to know what to do with a seemingly abandoned youngling.

Sithspit, what _i_ _s_ he going to do?

Numbly, he stumbles for the table in the center of the room and collapses into one of the chairs, still holding the child, hand on the back of where he can feel through the cloth that fragile head is. It's only then that he truly _looks_ at his unexpected charge.

Solemn dark blue eyes stare back at him, with unwavering, piercing focus that traps his own gaze and holds it. The little cheeks are stained with drying tears and snot and spittle; wrinkling his nose, Kanan grabs a cloth lying on the table and wipes it away one-handedly, starting with the eyes. Tufts of curly blue-black hair peek out from the edges of the loosened swaddling blanket. There's a word—a name—embroidered into the fabric.

"Ezra, huh?"

Most likely a little boy then, although maybe not. Kanan does _not_ want to check, but he places the youngling flat on the table and does so anyway, very reluctantly, because he also has to make sure the youngling doesn't need to be changed. That, at least, he remembers from the one time there actually was a baby crèche, although he wishes he knew how to check without unwrapping the cloth. He has to push aside a strange big device that appears to be some sort of ancient transmitter or radio but he doesn't know anything more than that.

Definitely a boy. Who does not need to be changed, thankfully, and with that thought he wraps him back up as fast as possible, but Kanan doesn't know how long that's going to last. How long has Ezra been down here, anyway? How long is _Kanan_ going to be here?

After a moment, Kanan decides he's going to wait until morning. Hopefully a shift change combined with low visibility nighttime descriptions reported back to the troopers' superiors will muddy the waters enough that he's less identifiable when he makes a break for the ship.

But that begs the giant question of what to do with Ezra. If he's truly alone, that's a problem, but Kanan's not sure he'd be able to help. He's fifteen, broke, a fugitive, a smuggler, lives on a ship, has a diet of nearly exclusively caf and cheap rations, and knows nothing about childcare. 

None of which is conducive to taking in a baby.

 _Not your problem_ , the practical side of him says. _You aren't a Jedi anymore. Never were, really, since you were just a padawan. What makes you think you can handle this?_

 _He'll die if I don't,_ says the other side, the annoying side he doesn't listen to much anymore. _If I can feel him, so can the darksiders. The Empire will find him if I leave him here alone._

The problem is, he can't tell whether Ezra's alone or not. He could probably snoop around upstairs for more details, though the lack of anything distinctive up there already doesn't bode well and he's worried the youngling will start crying again. It's too much to risk.

The entire situation doesn't add up. Why does this family have a secret room? Why is Ezra down here? Where are his parents?

"Something bad happened to you, didn't it?" he asks the boy, an aching sadness settling in his chest when he realizes it can't be anything good. After all, Kanan can relate.

In response, the vague warmth of Ezra's mind pulses a little, and a tiny hand reaches out and tries to grab at his face. Automatically, Kanan shifts the baby up until his hand can reach him, then silently wonders at himself for accommodating such a minor thing for a youngling who won't remember any of this.

But even while they're blindly fumbling at his face and nearly poking him in the eye, the impossibly soft, impossibly tiny fingers on his skin are oddly comforting, and he finds he doesn't mind it.

He doesn't mind any of it really. Now that he's in no immediate danger, sitting here with the baby is very peaceful, perhaps the most relaxed he's been in months. There's still the risk of getting caught, but he's hidden away enough that he feels a bit more shielded from the harsh outside world than he normally is. And he doesn't have to worry about Ezra drawing a blaster on him the way he does most people. Ezra's tiny body is a light, comforting pressure over his heart, and the boy's content mind resting against his nearly sends him into a meditative trance after a while.

Today has been a very strange day, but he decides he doesn't regret it. He's safe right now, and that's all that matters.

"You didn't have to bite me, you know," is the last thing he says before he falls asleep. 

He can worry in the morning. He is very tired of running right now.

**Author's Note:**

> -As I alluded to at the beginning, sex does not equal gender but since Ezra's a baby here the scene's for simplicity's sake.
> 
> -Kanan's in a really bad headspace about the Force, and he still thinks the clones betrayed him so he's also angry about that. Neither of which I can blame him for; the kid's traumatized after all.
> 
> -Choose your own adventure ending because I'm lazy and couldn't decide:
> 
> 1\. Mira and Ephraim Bridger return to the house, shaken up by their questioning overnight when a neighbor turned them in for potentially seditious activity. They just barely had time to hide Ezra in the room and re-cover the hatch, and the troopers didn't find the hatch, and had just taken them away when Kanan barges in. This is in the early days of the Empire when Lothal isn't worth investing much in, so this time they're sent home with just a warning. After being confronted, Kanan eventually tells them Ezra is Force-sensitive, which leads them to pay extra close attention to him when he's growing up - and pretty much everything else from canon plays out.
> 
> 2\. They _don't_ return and now this poor kid has to raise a Force-sensitive baby while he's still a baby himself, but he's gonna do it because he refuses to let Ezra die when so many other people like him have died. Poor Kanan.


End file.
